Lithuania Design Report 2018-2020

Commitments in Lithuania’s fourth action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... mostly build on previous initiatives and seek to improve transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More of the public sector and the quality of public services, among others. Notable commitments include creating an open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... portal and strengthening the NGO Fund. The Office of the Government developed the action plan with close engagement with civil society. Moving forward, the Office of the Government could better engage with the wider multi-stakeholder forumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... and provide stakeholders with better feedback on proposals gathered during public consultations.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Lithuania joined OGP in 2011. Since then, it has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of Lithuania’s fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

Lithuania enters its fourth action plan with decreasing levels of corruption and fewer citizens paying bribes to get public services. The fourth action plan aims to address deficiencies in open data, manage low levels of public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio... in decision-making processes, and improve the environment of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

To develop the fourth action plan, the Office of the Government launched a multi-stakeholder forum and formed a new OGP working group. Two working group meetings were held in which commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... proposals were actively discussed. However, the Office of the Government did not provide stakeholders with a summary of how proposals submitted during the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... were incorporated into the final action plan.

Four of six commitments in Lithuania’s fourth action plan are carried forward from the previous action plan to continue their implementation. Notable commitments include those creating an open data portal to integrate into the European digital market (Commitment 1) and an NGO fund and database (Commitment 2).

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

 Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan.

Table 3. Five Key IRM Recommendations